


if i don't lose a couple teeth, then it just won't feel real to me

by t0mmysliver



Category: Minecraft (Video Game), Video Blogging RPF
Genre: (WHERE THE FUCK IS HENRY THE COW'S TAG), (he's implied at least), (i cant find one anyway), (is that technically a spoiler lol), (why is there no dream & tommyinnit relationship tag), Mentioned Ghost Wilbur Soot, Mentioned Toby Smith | Tubbo, Mentioned Wilbur Soot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-07
Updated: 2021-03-07
Packaged: 2021-03-12 23:48:50
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,262
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29892423
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/t0mmysliver/pseuds/t0mmysliver
Summary: tommy read stories of people dying. slain in battle, finally reaching their end, falling through the air. those stories had promised him peace, closure, joy.he didn't get that. he didn't have time.ORthe space between tommy's death and his revival. creative liberties have been taken.
Relationships: Clay | Dream & Toby Smith | Tubbo & TommyInnit
Kudos: 8





	if i don't lose a couple teeth, then it just won't feel real to me

**Author's Note:**

> OK so this is WAY WAY shorter than mouse trap and go tonight, mad one because i wasn't really wanting to make a long story! this is basically tommy angst: the musical (well, fanfic, but in my dreams it's a musical) and i uh. i wrote it on the notes app on my phone. so it's probably not my best work but :) not many characters
> 
> the title name is from the song like a staring contest by the future kings of nowhere

Tommy read stories of people dying. Slain in battle, finally reaching their end, falling through the air. Those stories had promised him peace, closure, joy. 

He didn't get that. He didn't have time. 

There was too much going on, a sensory overload, to know what was going on, really, just hitting and punching and sweat from the bubbling lava dripping down his shirt, his face soaked as he screamed and grappled, sharp sensations of nails and teeth and then- 

He didn't even get realise what had happened. His last moments were stumbling and searing agony, he didn't get time to notice it starting in his spine before the orange engulfed him. It was far too quick for a boy like him. 

An eternity passed before he saw again, opening his eyes as a chill like ice settled on them. Darkness greeted him back. Call it corny, but he was grateful that one of the things the stories said to him was true; there was a light at the end of the tunnel. Like a firefly, there was a speck of white, and moving toward it proved a struggle. His movements were slow, the air thick, his body sluggish. 

He was cold. Sweat still dripped down his face, he could feel the burning against his skin, it hadn't fully kicked in yet, his nose burning like someone had stuffed up tissue in his brain through it, an itch that lurked under the skin and wiggled its way through his veins. The burning spread, but the cold from the void clawed into the surface of his skin and stayed there. 

Feverish, Tommy continued to drag himself towards the white, that was still barely bigger than dust particles despite how far he must have walked. Nothing was on his mind, not even his life and all that had caused it to end. 

His brain kicked into motion gradually, but never picked up on wondering why he was going toward the light. He didn't consider what the light was, what it'd do to him, what it all meant. He was simply a moth to a flame, a lemming to a cliffside, a- 

He woke up. A zombie. He was dead. It wasn't a shock, nothing of the sort, it'd settled nauseously in his stomach but it wasn't enough to make him sick. This realisation was a true one, ripping his chest to shreds, hollowing out his bones and sending him down to his knees. 

The void wasn't empty anymore. He was there. Another star burning brightly when it'd been snuffed out in the overworld. His feet aimlessly grazed toward where a floor would be, should be, but there was nothing. Just an emptiness that was infectious. Absorbent too. Tommy didn't feel nauseous anymore. Just tired. 

When did he get so used to that? 

The speck of light had grown to the size of a grape. Perspective was difficult to tell in the darkness, harder than moving. Maybe he was aware of where he was, but that didn't mean he was going to stop. He'd never liked the dark. It was why he used to bunk with Tubbo when they were kids, why he decorated the cold walls of Pogtopia, why he couldn't sleep in exile. The prison justified his fear. It was almost ironic that, in his last moments, he was blinded with bright orange. That it'd scorched his skin. 

There was too much to be frightened of in the above world. 

Here, there was only black and white. The void and the tunnel. Tommy could breathe. If only he'd let himself. 

The stars began to shift, and as they grew closer, he noticed that they weren't stars at all. They were something else. A person? Something anyway, something he knew he'd not seen for a long time, something lost to him, and something he knew he needed back. 

His hand slowly lifted up to meet the not-star as it grew closer, and it nudged his hand with its head with a small huff. 

"He-hey Henry..." 

Even in the afterlife, cows couldn't talk. He liked that. The silence wasn't entirely filled, he could breathe and think, but he wasn't alone anymore, soft moos and sniffs providing him company. 

Another star to walk to the light with. 

* * *

He's walking forever, but the clock ticking inside his head guesses it's been weeks, months perhaps, maybe bordering on a year, give or take, and the light is ever so close. From the speck of dust to a mountain, and it's only getting closer. 

It hums to him, a small song. He doesn't recognise it, but it's warm and filling, the aches in his joints from a difficult life and miles of absent-minded wandering smoothed out by the cotton melody coursing through him. There's strings sewn into his muscles, tugging him toward the light. It doesn't hurt. Nothing seems to hurt him here. 

Stars have been and gone, Henry the only one who's stayed. That's because he's the only one Tommy wants to stay. He's seen so many old faces, some he's confused by, some he's scared by. Some he's pretended are still alive. 

He sucks in a breath to his chest; he doesn't need to anymore, but it's a comfort. The void is cold. Even if the song didn't fix his joints, the cold would numb him to the bone. There was no pain in the afterlife. Just the light and the stars. 

Its hum grew louder and louder - in life, Tommy knew it would have upset him, he'd need to cover his ears as he screamed over it, he'd sob and cry about the noise (but its absence would have the same effect) - and it calls him closer. 

"It's buzzing, Henry," he murmurs, the cow softly mooing and nudging his hand. He wants him to touch it. To feel how real it is. So he obliges. 

His hand reaches forward - the humming grows soft, like a lullaby coming to an end, and buzzing is gentle but reaches for him too, it's almost like a hand reaching back at his. In this moment, Tommy realises that the light isn't the end of him, but a start. The start of his peace. 

After a lifetime of fatigue, he'll finally be able to rest. 

His hand's almost clasping the light. It's ready to cradle his fingers in it. 

He doesn't get to touch it. 

* * *

With a gasp that feels alien in his throat, he sits up to darkness. There's a surface beneath him, rough and rocky, scratching cuts into his skin. Pain. The aches return to his body as he pants, sweat rolling down his body, his ears prick up at the lava - so orange, so bright so- oh no. 

He scrambles away, his legs feeling all too real, his breath caught up in a whirlwind as he struggles to remember how to breathe, let alone control it, until he hits what isn't a wall, but another person. 

"You thought I was gonna let you go that easy?" A smug voice echoes, bouncing across the rough void, sending a chill down his spine that, in different circumstances, would have been welcomed. 

He doesn't dare to look up at first, closing his eyes and praying to whatever god controlled this place, but they slowly open to the impatient tapping of the man with the sly tongue. 

Tommy realises something. This man is the god here. He turns, slow and steady, his breaths telling a different story, to look to the man's plain smile. 

"So," he starts to ask. "What was it like?" 

**Author's Note:**

> heheheheheheheh tommy angst


End file.
